What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?

Ireland faces a crisis of mass unemployment. More than 14 per cent of the labour force is unemployed, and long-term unemployment is growing rapidly. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) - consisting of a range of assistance, training and employment programmes to support the unemployed back to work - have been held out as an essential part of the policy response to unemployment. This paper examines a wide range of national and international research on the effectiveness of ALMPs to ask: i) what do ALMPs do for the unemployed?, ii) are some programmes more effective than others? iii) what can we expect ALMPs to achieve in a recession? The paper shows that while research on the impact of active labour market programmes is far from conclusive and faces a number of difficult methodological challenges, it does provide a basis on which to identify the types of programmes that have been found to enhance the employment prospects of their unemployed clients.labour market/Policy

The Determinants and Effects of Training at Work: Bringing the Workplace Back In. ESRI WP289. April 2009

This paper brings together two research fields: on work-related training and high performance work practices (HPWP), respectively. We estimate models of both the determinants and the impact of training using the NCPP/ESRI Changing Workplace Survey. Our models of the determinants of training confirm previous research: age, education, contract, tenure, and firm size all influence training. Several components of HPWP are associated with a higher probability of training, specifically, general (non-firm-specific) training. Participation in general training is associated with higher earnings, as is involvement in highly participative and consultative working arrangements, and performance reward systems. These patterns of training, and returns to training, are broadly consistent with HPWP approaches and represent a challenge to human capital theory

The Incidence and Correlates of Workplace Bullying in Ireland. ESRI WP148. 2002

This paper reports the results of the first nationally representative survey of the incidence of workplace bullying in the Republic of Ireland. The results are based on analysis of a sample of over 5,200 individuals in paid work outside the home. Overall, 7% of per persons in the work-place report that they experienced bullying in the 6 months preceding the survey. Bullying victimisation was far more common among employees than among the self-employed, and victimisation rates were higher among women than men. Almost 3% of those at work report that they experienced bullying either daily or several times per week during the reference period. Multivariate analyses of the incidence of bullying suggest that workplace characteristics are more influential than personal attributes in determining bullying victimisation

The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work-Life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland. ESRI WP189. April 2007

Recent rapid economic growth in Ireland has been accompanied by a strong surge in the number of women in employment, and this has led to a significant increase in the proportion of dual-earner families. These changes have brought the issue of reconciliation between work and care commitments to the fore. Flexible working arrangements in firms have been identified as one important means of balancing work and other commitments (Evans 2001). In this paper we investigate the relationship between four flexible working arrangements – flexi-time, part-time hours, working from home and job-share – and two key employee outcomes – work pressure and work-life conflict, using data from the first national survey of employees in Ireland in 2003. Our results show that while part-time work and flexi-time tend to reduce work pressure and work-life conflict, working from home is associated with greater levels of both work pressure and work-life conflict. We conclude that it is important to distinguish between flexible working arrangements to discover their potential for reducing work pressure and work-life conflict

“One Dummy Won’t Get it: The Impact of Training Programme Type and Duration on the Employment Chances of the Unemployed in Ireland”. ESRI WP410. September 2011

In the extensive literature on the employment impact of public-sponsored training programmes for the unemployed, insufficient attention has been paid to the differential impact of different types of programmes and training duration. This paper uses a unique dataset, which tracks the labour market position of a cohort of unemployment benefit claimants for almost two years, to evaluate the impact of a range of government-sponsored training courses in Ireland. Overall, we found that those who participated in training were less likely to be unemployed at the end of the two-year study period. However, the average effect of training varied by the type and duration of training received. In general, we found strong positive effects for job-search skills training and medium-to high-level skills courses, a more modest positive effect for general vocational skills programmes (which are not strongly linked to demand in the labour market) and less consistent effects with respect to low-level skills training. We also found that training episodes with lower duration had a more positive impact, with the exception of high-level skills training programmes where longer training durations appear more effective. The results suggest that, in the Irish context, there are potentially substantial benefits to re-orientating unemployment training provision away from standard classroom vocational training towards the medium to high-level skill end of the market and demonstrate that, in most cases, training durations can be reduced without lowering the effectiveness of the interventions

Transitions to Long-Term Unemployment Risk Among Young People: Evidence from Ireland. ESRI WP394. July 2011

Many young people have short spells of unemployment during their transition from school to work; however, some often get trapped in unemployment and risk becoming long-term unemployed (OECD, 2009). Much research has been undertaken on the factors that influence unemployment risk for young people during their school-to-work transition. However, very little is known about the factors associated with long-term unemployment risk for those youths that become unemployed. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by identifying the characteristics associated with young peoples’ long-term unemployment risk in Ireland. The research, which is conducted using multivariate statistical analysis, uses a combination of unemployment register data and information gathered from a specially designed claimant questionnaire that was issued to all jobseekers making an unemployment benefit claim between September and December 2006. The results indicate that factors such as a recent history of long-term unemployment, a lack of basic literacy/numeracy skills and low levels of educational attainment, all have a significant impact on the likelihood that young people will remain unemployed for 12 months or more. A number of attributes are gender specific, such as the presence of children, additional welfare benefits and spousal earnings for females, and apprenticeship training and participation in a public sector job creation scheme for males. Comparisons with the characteristics associated with older welfare claimants long-term unemployment risk, reveal some interesting difference between younger and older unemployed individuals

Carrots without Sticks: The Impacts of Job Search Assistance in a Regime with Minimal Monitoring and Sanctions. ESRI WP409, September 2011

This paper uses a high quality longitudinal dataset to assess the impact of an active labour market intervention consisting of referral for interview plus Job Search Assistance (JSA) with the public employment service in Ireland during a period when both job search monitoring and sanctions were virtually non‐existent. The results indicate that, relative to a control group with no intervention, unemployed individuals that were exposed to the interview letter and participated in JSA were 16 per cent less likely to have exited to employment prior to 12 months. The negative effects of the intervention approximately doubled when those that received a referral letter but did not attend a JSA interview were removed from the data. The results held when tested against the underlying assumptions of the model, and the influences of both sample selection and unobserved heterogeneity bias. The negative treatment impact is attributed to individuals lowering their job search intensity on learning, through the JSA activation interview, of the lax nature of the activation process. The research, which is unusual in the international literature in allowing the assessment of the impact of job search assistance in the virtual absence of monitoring and sanctions, highlights the need for effective monitoring and sanctions as integral components of labour market activation programmes

A Statistical Profiling Model of Long-Term Unemployment Risk in Ireland. ESRI WP345. May 2010

This paper develops a statistical profiling model of long-term unemployment risk in Ireland using a combination of administrative data and information gathered from a unique questionnaire that was issued to all jobseekers making a social welfare claim between September and December 2006 who were then tracked for eighteen months. We find that factors such as a recent history of long-term unemployment, advanced age, number of children, relatively low levels of education, literacy/numeracy problems, location in urban areas, lack of personal transport, low rates of recent labour market engagement, spousal earnings and geographic location all significantly impact the likelihood of remaining unemployed for 12 months or more. While the predicted probability distribution for males was found to be relatively normal, the female distribution was bimodal, indicating that larger proportions of females were at risk of falling into long-term unemployment. We find evidence that community based employment schemes for combating long-term unemployment have little effect as participants re-entering the register typically experience extended durations. Finally, we argue that the adoption of an unemployment profiling system will result in both equity and efficiency gains to Public Employment Services